The Tale of Lady Luck
by I Used To Be A Dragon
Summary: Princesses were always at least a little cursed. It was expected, really. But her curse? Well, it just proved fate had a cruel streak. AU, eventual Romy. Reviews are always loved.
1. Pen to Paper

Once upon a time, in an alternate universe far, far, _far _away...a beautiful princess was born, as they generally are in such stories. But with the preternatural unluckiness that princesses seem prone to, her birth was cursed by a witch garbed in a crimson cloak. Oh, a spell of such wickedness was not meant for the little girl, intended instead for one of the lords attending the christening, but storytellers has always loved dramatic twists and turns. Besides, it would been a blight on tradition to have a princess without some sort of terrible curse. Fairy tales have standards, you know. But I digress.

Indeed, while the young princess would inevitably been the victim of some cruel witch as all royalty must be, this curse was particularly troublesome. Her pale skin was turned into an instrument of death, stealing memory and life from all that dared to touch. The entire land wept, lamenting that such a dark affliction had fallen on their lovely little princess. But centuries of life in a universe ruled by ink and paper had prepared them for such eventualities, and it was with much weeping and wailing that the girl was bundled off into the deepest, darkest forest that they had to await the arrival of her one true love, who would surely be able to break the foul curse, as he always was.

It was unfortunate, then, that this particular princess was not fond of waiting.

* * *

**Just a short teaser to see if anyone's interested. Let me know if it should be continued here, or relegated to my hard drive. **


	2. Rogue Princess

The soft brown furs on the bed were dappled in the rare sunlight that managed to slip through the skeletal thicket of trees, turning the blackness behind the sleeping woman's eyelids into a warm sort of orange. Green eyes flickered open, their depths filled with drowsy bliss. She stretched languidly under the furs, then simply lay still for a bit. Before long, she dragged herself out of the bed and to the sun-filled window, then stared out at the dark of the forest. The trees swayed in a slight wind, their bark creaking as it shifted. Pine needles were shaken from their branches to land on the moss-covered ground as a particularly strong gust of air swept through them.

"How long have ah been here? Fifteen summers? Sixteen?"

The window remained silent as she spoke to it, as windows are wont to do. No one had yet seen a point to enchanting windows into talking. They were far too chatty; mirrors were much better about that sort of thing.

She sighed heavily and turned away from the window. The wooden floor creaked under her feet as she moved to her oaken closet. She pulled heavily on the smooth brass handles, yanking the doors open. The dresses swished slightly at the breeze she'd created and one of heavy green and black brocade caught her eye. She sighed again. There was nothing she wouldn't give for a nice pair of trousers and a simple blouse, but Jean had outright forbidden any such thing. Not that that had stopped her from secretly sewing herself a practical outfit, but after having the fifth painstakingly sewn and hidden pair of trousers made into a skirt and pointedly left in her closet, she'd decided her energy was better put to use doing other things. Like cooking nice dinners and making sure they had ingredients guaranteed to give Jean a rash red enough to match her hair. Petty, maybe, but satisfying.

She slipped into the dress, and reached around her back to pull futilely on the laces, then huffed with frustration. Why couldn't witches curse the people who'd designed such annoying contraptions instead of running around and hurling spells at princesses? It would make everyone much happier.

"Kitty!" She stomped on the floor, her heel smarting a bit at the heavy thud. Feet immediately began to patter up the stair, and her door slammed open a few moments later. A tiny woman hurtled through, brown hair disheveled and chocolate eyes open wide.

"Rogue! What is it?"

"Ah can't get these laces. Again."

She tugged on them again, just to prove her point. Kitty's pink lips twitched into a relieved little grin.

"I thought you'd seen that dragon flying around again."

"Ah wish. That dragon is less annoying than these dresses."

Completely untrue, but not the rogue princess' fault. She hadn't yet met a dragon up close. Not that she ever would. Dragons were extremely rare; there were only two dragons that made their homes anywhere close to the forest, and both demonstrated an almost insulting disinterest in princesses. They were much more likely to steal a kingdom's gold. It was far less flammable and with rare exception, didn't cry.

Kitty moved behind Rogue, carefully pushing her bare hands away from the laces. She pulled the laces tight, and with several unnecessary flourishes, had secured the dress.

"There. All done! Except for your hair. It's like a rat's nest, you know."

Rogue sighed for the third time that morning, but allowed herself to be pushed down onto the chair by the vanity and handed a brush. Kitty would've been responsible for her hair, but they'd quickly learned that it was almost impossible for her to brush it without touching some small amount of skin and subsequently fainting. Rogue tugged the brush through her odd dual-toned auburn hair, allowing it to fall in waves down her shoulder, then pulled the white strands that framed her face away, braiding them back.

"One of these days, Ah'm gonna cut this mess. It's always in mah eyes."

"And then Jean will hide everything sharp so it has to grow. Do you know how hard it is to cook without knives?"

"Not exactly discouraging me, Kitty."

It was true that Kitty couldn't quite cook, but it wasn't her fault. After all, one of her great-grandmothers had some claim to witchery, and everyone knows people with that sort of lineage can't cook proper meals. They're always subconsciously trying to make potions.

Rogue opened the top drawer of the vanity, vaguely listening to Kitty's voice in the background as she fished out a pair of long black gloves and pulled them on.

"Whatever. Jean's not going to be happy if we don't get downstairs soon."

"...Not exactly discouraging me, Kitty."

But she still trudged down the stairs after Kitty. The cottage they lived in was designed to draw the eye; everything about it suggested that a traveling knight should investigate. Weathered tapestries hung from the walls, their faded red threads a bright spot to the strange dreariness of the sparsely decorated room. A blackened pot was still and empty over the cold hearth.

"Jean's not here?"

She was not.

Kitty frowned, her brows crinkling in confusion.

"Maybe she stepped outside?"

Rogue shrugged her shoulders and strode briskly to the door, opening it calmly.

"Might as well take a look. Ah don't know what she'd be doing outside though."

Jean spent most of her time inside, cleaning or sewing or cooking. The rare ventures outside into the forest were generally due to Rogue slipping away. How Jean always seemed to know what she was thinking, she'd never figured out.

A cold wind rushed inside as the doors open, buffeting the girls with brisk air. They shuddered at the chill, but quickly rallied themselves and left the relative warmth of the cottage. The woods were silent, other than the rushing of the wind, but that wasn't unusual; they were rarely loud with any sort of bird song or other animal noises. What was unusual was the trail of pebbles that led away into the depths of the forest, and the strange smell of sulfur that blew by on the wind.

Kitty groaned. She knew the start of adventure when she saw it.

* * *

**First, a huge thanks to everyone that reviewed and favorited and story alerted and just generally made my day. **

**Second, I'm not a big fan of this chapter, but I expect I'll get more into the swing of things later on. Haven't written X-Men: Evolution in forever.**

**Third, another huge thanks to everyone, and I still love reviews and non-subtle hints.  
**


	3. A Summer's Knight

**A/N: Sorry for the lateness and shortness of this. I've been involved in a slap-fight with life lately.**

**Also, a huge thanks to the reviews and such. It really does help me power through when a story is fighting being written.  
**

* * *

Adventure did indeed tend to be unsubtle, but only due to the tendency of knights to be dense. When a man spends his life learning to tolerate bashes to the head and risk a fiery death simply to win the hand of a princess, it stands to reason that he cannot be entirely sensible.

The Knight of Summer defied such reasoning, by virtue of being sightless and without family. While he was quite capable of taking a beating, he was one of the few that never saw much point in doing so if it could be avoided, no matter how prized well-placed scars were.

By and large, he was more clever than most knights, in such respects. Unfortunately, he still counted himself among their community, and every proper knight needed at least one damsel to risk an exceptionally unpleasant death for.

And it was for that very notion that the Knight of Summer found himself in a run-down tavern, eating a stew of uncertain origin that probably had been made by a witch if the taste was any indication, and waiting for a young man of ill-repute.

Gambit, the man called himself (a rather pretentious name, the Knight of Summer thought) and was said to be a thief without parallel. But more than that, he claimed to know where the Rogue Princess could be found.

Such a claim was, of course, utterly ridiculous. While quests were meant to be difficult, the search for the Rogue Princess had erred on the side of impossible. The Knight of Summer didn't have enough fingers and toes to count the knights that had died in the quest to find her.

_One would think that the King and Queen had bothered to keep a map or at least to make a note of where they left their daughter, _He brooded quietly to himself, _but I suppose that wouldn't have made for a very good bard's tale: and then the knight procured a map and followed it until he found the princess and awakened her. The end._

He sighed heavily and almost choked as a hand clapped down on his shoulder. He spun around, drawing his sword.

"Have at thee!"

"Calm down, _mon ami. _Gambit don't want no trouble, and he don't think you do either."

He could hear the grin in the other man's words, and fought back a wince at his lack of self-control. He was on edge tonight; he wasn't like Lord Creed, ready to fight at a single offensive word or kill at the mere mention of a dwarf. At least, he didn't want to be.

He gestured at the chair, motioning for the other man to sit, even though the scraping of a chair told him his invitation had been pointless. He took his seat once again, sitting stiffly (the chairs were terribly uncomfortable; he'd sat in one for barely a few minutes and it felt as if he'd sat there for two months), one hand still on his blade.

"You say you know where to find the Princess. Tell me, thief."

"Gambit don't do business without a name, and he definitely don't do business without gold."

He took the purse from his side, dropping it down on the table with the clinking of coin.

"I am the Knight of Summer."

He heard the purse being dragged across the table, the clicking of tongue against teeth as the other man weighted the gold briefly.

"Knight of Summer isn't a name, _mon ami."_

He raised a questioning brow.

"And Gambit is?"

The other man chuckled lowly.

"Gambit got things t'hide. Does a knight need to hide his name?"

He could feel his cheeks reddening. How dare the man question his honor? It was almost a struggle not to request a duel at the blatant challenge.

"My name is Scott."

The man's chuckle morphed into a surprised snort of laughter that was quickly smoothed over into an extraordinarily fake cough.

To a knight, honor was paramount. It was why they hurled themselves into battle, why they preferred titles to simple names.

It was also why Scott, the Knight of Summer, removed his glove and slapped it across the face of the thief with a resounding _smack_.

"You, sir, have offended my honor! I demand a duel."

And honor also had the blame for the knight's surprise when the thief lunged across the table, catching him around the waist and pulling them both to the floor amid the shrieks of the other patrons.

Scott prided himself on his skill with a blade, on how he could move with a cat's grace even in full armor. He did not, however, pride himself overmuch on his skill in fighting dirty, unlike the scoundrel that had just attacked him.

He fought against dragons in the rocky cliffs of mountains, not against thieves wielding fists and wooden mugs in the smoky air of a tavern.

Knights simply did not involve themselves in bar brawls.

Gambit pulled himself away, the gold jingling at his hip in his hurry to leave. The shrieks had turned to wild cheers, the little squabble into a mass frenzy of fists. Scott caught his breath and crawled forward, scrabbling at the man's ankle, pulling him back down to the floor. A hand caught him in the eye and he grunted, but shoved ahead anyway, keeping his head low and covered.

"Halt!"

Silence reigned in the tavern as the guard's bellowed into the riot. Gambit had stopped struggling to get free, his body still tense under Scott's grip.

"Who is responsible for this?"

He couldn't almost feel the fingers pointing at the both of them, and hung his head in shame. Fighting in a tavern, against a man not worthy of his blade...it was disgraceful.

Boots stomped across the floor, and he felt himself being hauled roughly upward. If the heavy sigh was any indication, Gambit was undergoing the same treatment. It was precious little comfort. This sort of behavior was expected from one such as him, not a knight seeking the hand of a princess.

His voice was hoarse with embarrasment when he finally got a hold of his tongue.

"I apologize for my actions. They do not befit my station."

The guard's grip on him had loosened as he got a good look at the knight.

"I recognize you. The Knight of Summer."

He could barely manage a nod, the shame was so great.

A long silence followed his affirmation before the guard cleared his throat.

"A knight and a thief...this is an unusual situation. We'll hold you in a cell for the night before we decide what to do. An unusual situation, indeed."

Scott had rested in many unsavory locations before; it came with being a knight. But a jail cell...that was a new low. He braced his shoulders, raising his head and straightening his back. Whatever they decided, he would face it with the courage that befit his station, not sniveling like a wretch.

* * *

**Still not entirely happy with this. It sort of feels like my tone has been rather schizophrenic, and I think it's because I'm a bit hesitant about the narrator thing.**

**Which is why I have a poll about it that I would love for you guys to check out. Pretty much it's just asking whether you want more of the narrator, or less.  
**

**So, please go take a look and vote.  
**

**Thanks for reading, as always. :)  
**


End file.
